[Guest Post] How we should be responding to the LGBT movement

"It's the Holy Spirit's job to convict, God's job to judge, and my job to love.” (Billy Graham).

In our culture, we are faced with a new challenge. According to Ed Shaw, the author of Same Sex Attraction and the Church, the gay community has changed from a minority to mainstream in a little under twenty years. Our culture celebrates many forms of sexual sin, and homosexual activity is no exception.

​Unfortunately, those who acknowledge that homosexual activity is a sin are often alienating and harsh, responding to the LGBT community with condemnation and judgement. This is not Christ’s heart for the lost.

There are several things we must recognize. Firstly, choosing the title of “gay”, “lesbian”, “bisexual”, or whatever it may be, is an identity problem first a foremost. EVERYONE, same sex attracted or not, must find freedom by accepting adoption into Christ’s family as their true identity.

Rosaria Butterfield is an author and speaker who has been delivered by God from a life of homosexuality and spiritual blindness. She shares that pride is very important to the LGBT community and she had taken pride in a false identity for many years.

The fact that people are choosing to identify a certain way shows us there is a deeper problem and we can’t just attack the manifestation of the wound.

In his book ​Out of a Far Country, Christopher Yuan reminds us that the ultimate call is to holiness, not heterosexuality. We have all fallen short, and are only justified by the grace of Jesus (Romans 3:23)!

Second, we all struggle with pride and we all sin. Pride causes separation from God. And it can come in the form of manipulation, lying, substance abuse, sexual immorality, or any other sin. We are only free from sin because of Jesus. And we don’t get to decide who has sinned too greatly, we don’t get to decide what sins are bigger, and we don’t need to be afraid of loving people who are lost.

Rosaria Butterfield wrote that the people who ministered to her and eventually led her to Christ were much less focused on fixing her than they were on loving her. They didn’t preach at her or pressure her to go to church immediately like she thought they would, and she shared in Openness Unhindered that because of these omissions, when they extended their hands in friendship, she felt safe. As believers, we are called to hold each other accountable, but before we can do that, we have to establish a relationship and trust. Pray that God will show you when to speak and when to stay quiet.

The same passage that clearly warns against homosexuality also warns against a lack of love and mercy (Romans 1: 26, 27, 31). Leviticus calls homosexual relations an abomination, but the verse condemns the actions, not the people (Yuan 186). Remember that when an adulteress was brought before him, Jesus said to the Pharisees, “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” (John 8:7). That doesn’t mean we accept sin, it means we accept people because Jesus loves them and wants to deliver them. Friendship and love is what Jesus offered the lost. When they saw this, they loved him more than their sin and followed him (a phenomenon Rosaria expresses eventually feeling as well). May we never again be the ones the cast a stone.

Note: This guest post was written by Lily Corley. Lily wrote a speech on this topic that placed 2nd in Persuasive at the 2017 NCFCA National Championship.